Starring Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Teri Polo, Blythe Danner, Owen Wilson,
Phyllis George, James Rebhorn, Jon Abrahams, Nicole DeHuff.
Written by James Herzfeld and John Hamburg. Directed by Jay Roach.
Greg Focker (Stiller) is a male nurse who has fallen in love with Pam (Polo). In
the middle of proposing to her, Pam gets a call indicating her sister is now engaged,
telling her how her sister's doctor fiance had asked her father's permission. Greg
decides to accompany Pam to visit her parents Jack (DeNiro) and Dina (Danner). Jack
has a history of not thinking any of her suitors are good enough for her darling
daughter. Pam's told Greg her father was in the flower business, but it turns out
he was a CIA spy for 34 years, just recently retired.
Soon into his visit, he's insulted Jack's prize cat, butchered grace with an exerpt
from Day By Day and destroyed the urn where Jack's mother's ashes are kept.
Jack stumbles into the hidden room where Jack keeps his CIA equipment, and is soon
being subjected to a lie detector test, which he doesn't do too well on. And things
get even worse. Greg finds out Pam's ex-boyfriend Kevin (Wilson) is actually her
ex-fiance, and he is the best man at Pam's sister's wedding. The whole family spends
a pre-wedding barbeque at Kevin's new lavish mansion where Greg pales more and more
in comparison to Pam's ex. Jack's intimidation tactics disturb Greg to the point that Greg
causes one calamity after another. Will Greg ever succeed in winning over Pam's
parents, or will he slink away defeated?
Directed by Roach who did both of the Austin Power movies, Meet The Parents
has plenty of laughs. What makes the film work is the consistent buildup of tension
between DeNiro and Stiller, ratcheting up the conflict and making each new calamity
worse than the last. Well-paced and well-written, there is very little in the way
of satirizing family life or marriage, and no grossout, dumb and dumber pranks.
Instead, the humour is based on the situations Greg keeps finding himself in, and
his refusal to tell the truth when pressured by Jack. Yet telling the truth
might not have helped him all that much, since Jack didn't find him suitable even
before he found out Greg was a male nurse, Jewish and accident prone.
Ben Stiller is making a career of playing hapless guys who suffer in the pursuit
of love. Starring in the truly fine satirical Flirting With Disaster and
the truly over-rated There's Something About Mary, Stiller takes his punishment
and keeps coming back for more.
DeNiro is solid playing against type as the tightly-wound, overprotective
father with just a little Nazi in him. Especially good is Danner as the understanding
mother. Like DeNiro's Analyse This, Meet The Parents is a well-made,
entertaining comedy that delivers consistent laughs.
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